Home is where the art is
When Xuan Xanh Laurie left Vietnam for the United States as a nine-year-old refugee, she never dreamed she would one day return.
But 24 years on, Xuan Xanh flies to Vietnam at least once a month. If she is not supervising her lucrative embroidered linen business, she is discovering new Vietnamese artists for the gallery she has set up with Lucy Anda.
'I was attracted to art when my husband and I lived in Moscow and I went to the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. It was then that I saw art and began to know and understand it,' Xuan Xanh said.
'We then moved to London and it was there that I came across a Vietnamese artist called Vu Cao Dam who was living in Provence, France.' This month, Xuan Xanh and Lucy organised their first exhibition, with 80 per cent of the Vietnamese paintings being sold and one artist, Le Vuong, selling out.
'As this is Le Vuong's first exhibition in Hong Kong we are really pleased,' said Lucy, a former banker whose husband is managing director of Morgan Stanley Asia. 'His paintings have been a hit because they have a serene quality and you can be drawn into their mood.'
